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DISCLAIMER
This is a personal web site, reflecting the opinions of its author. It is not a production of my employer, and it is unaffiliated with ANY hospital, medical center, medical practice or other physicians. Statements on this site do not represent the views or policies of anyone other than myself. The information on this site is provided for discussion purposes only, and are not medical recommendations. I offer no guarentee as to the accuracy of anything stated and the information here is at times, highly speculative and does not constitute advice to/not to diagnose or treat. Any personal medical issues the reader may have should be referred immediately to the reader's private physician and under no circumstances should anyone delay, change, or alter any medical treatment or planned treatment or diagnosis based on anything read on this site. Under no circumstances does any herein contained information represent a medical recommendation.

my "interpreting" and "diagnosing" from one single cut of a 1996 CT scan

my "interpreting" and "diagnosing" a bone scan report done in 4/91; and, two CT reports done on 2/25/90, and 2/27/90

criticism /questioning of experts

my credentials and expertise

my unabashed listing of my credentials and expertise

I am going to encapsulate my coverage of the case -- including the CT scans and bone scan -- while explaining and defending my positions.

This is the first of TWO PARTS:

PART ONE

My Way: The Method

It is important for all readers to understand that this is a personal web log, or blog. This is my personal blog, run for no profit, designed mainly as an outlet for my opinions.

These are opinions. Like all opinions, they may be loud or soft, informed or rash, prescient or foolhardy.

This is neither a newspaper nor a scientific journal. I do not present my ideas as peer-reviewed, double-blinded results. People frequently -- and harshly --question my qualifications to express the things that I say. In the past I have responded (sometimes pre-emptively) with a discussion of my expertise or experience. This in itself has instigated harsh rebukes from some who claim I am thus being arrogant or supercilious. I have found this "Catch 22" to be impossible to deal with so I am resolved to mostly not defend myself by constantly restating what I know, where I trained, and how my light is spent. Reader are referred to my about page.

My blog represents what I'm thinking as I read the news. I am usually asking questions. It's sort of letting you into my perspective as I read things in the headlines that don't make sense or don't fit correctly or don't add up -- according to my fund of knowledge. If that is useful for people...good; they'll read and benefit. If it is not useful, then people Will move on.

I will continue to ask questions in this blog. Because almost nothing I read or hear-- about health care and specific medical issues-- from MSM makes sense to me.

And, although I am happy to explain the rationale for my thinking, or the process through which I came to my conclusions, I cannot spend endless hours of time involved in circular arguments repeating things I've said in a different way.

So, if you are interested in the questions that occur to me as I read about the medical issues of people in the news; the health care studies and advice that are generated daily; as well as the medical news, tune in and take a few minutes to see what's going on from my vantage point.

I guarantee you two things. My vantage point is almost always different from what you are hearing and reading. And I can afford you insights to the health care system you may not otherwise be privy to.

The Tenor: or Soprano?

Until the Terri Schiavo posts, my blog has basically been a small circulation letter to regular readers. Sure, during posts about Yasser Arafat and Viktor Yushchenko, I had a lot of visitors from around the blogosphere; however, they were mostly searches and one-time hits.

Regular readers are used to my style, and I am used to their responses. With the Terri Schiavo posts my style of writing in this blog was suddenly broken open to a wide audience, and many had severe stylistic objections, which I understand.

I have taken this under serious consideration. Certainly if there are going to be large numbers of readers who come repetitively to this URL, I cannot expect them all to be my regulars who are familiar with me, what I stand for, and how I express myself; so, this is certainly something I will monitor and adjust as need be.

The Schiavo Issues

None of this changes the observations I have made on the Schiavo case and I stand by every single one of them. I have been grilled -- live -- on the radio twice by neurologists, neuroradiologists, and sundry experts concerning everything I have said, and I have not been knocked off any point.

The problem always seems to come down to people not reading what I said. Because I usually mean exactly what I say and no more. But people cannot help expanding, changing, and transmuting what I've written.

Orientation

I do not come from the perspectives of what people would consider a strict "right to lifer," the "religious right," or a "radical conservative."

My original issue was the feeding tube. I did not -- and still do not --understand how food and water came under the rubric of life support in the same category as intubation, forced breathing, and cardiac pacing. The best analogy I can use is the Foley catheter (tube through the urethra into the urinary bladder to allow urine to drain). If you are going to remove food, then why allow patients to urinate?

As a physician, I strongly object to actuating death. That is not what I was trained to do, and if society decides that is what it wants, I would propose some different professionals be assigned the duty to pull these tubes when the law orders it. For me, as a physician, it is an act that is inimical to all the reasons I went into the health care field.

Making terminal patients comfortable during their last days is, to me, is in a different philosophical and ethical cosmos than removing a feeding tube from a severely impaired patient.

The Infamous CT Scan

I saw, and heard neurologists, ethicists, and hospice physicians in media outlets such as NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and all the newspapers, declaring that Terri Schiavo's higher brain functions were nil. To describe this they used terms like: "her brain is: "water," a "bag of water," and "totally without cortex." One medical ethicist on NPR said (paraphrased) that Terri's brain was completely without a functioning cortex and since the cortex is where the complex functions and emotions of life are carried out, she is therefore not alive, but dead.

I, like every one else I assume, took this as it was stated (it didn't change my mind about the feeding tube anyway) until I stumbled on the single mid-ventricular CT image of Terri's brain that was done either in 1996 or 2002 (no matter).

Upon seeing the CT slice I was shocked that, yes there was severe atrophy, yes, there was severe damage, and yes the cortex was markedly thinned, but the CT itself did not reflect the descriptions I'd heard; and worse, I have seen many old and debilitated nursing home/assisted living patients as well as younger patients with chronic brain damage, with similar or worse atrophy. And not all of these patients were nonfunctioning.

That same CT slice was used as a visual graphic on television and in the newspapers -- by the same group of experts -- to demonstrate why Terri Schiavo was suitable for euthanasia. I objected to this strongly as, to me, the implications for all the other patients with similar or worse CT scans was morally and ethically frightening (talk about slippery slopes!).

I've been heavily criticized as unethically interpreting Terri's CT from this single slice, and speculating from the limited data. Let's get something straight. First, this was the only slice available. Second, it was the same and only slice everyone other expert was commenting upon. The University of Miami bioethics webpage thought it was appropriate to use that single slice on their web page as a testament to Terri's brain damage. Third, I made observations, not a diagnosis. Fourth, this was a scan done in the remote past. Looking at that slice and speculating about questions it raises is no more unethical than looking at a fossil and speculating on the size and shape of a dinosaur. It's a fragment of an old map, or a puzzle. And putting puzzles together to try and figure out possibilities is one of the things radiologists do for a living.

I also felt strongly that it was disingenuous for experts to put Terri's CT slice side-by-side with a normal 25 year-old female's CT. To the nontrained eye, the striking disparity nailed the case shut. To me that was unfair journalism and tendentious in the worst way. It would have been far more appropriate to put up the CT of a patient with severe cerebral palsy or chronic atherosclerosis. But this would not have made their case so strong, and one must question why these experts were given a pass for passing judgment on a single slice of a CT and for a deceptive comparison. I certainly was given no similar pass by readers and commentators when I said something different using the same data set.

It is also my contention that if the media are going to use limited data to solidify important and weighty issues, then there better be someone in the audience who asks these questions. Because the reporters don't The reporters and interviewers often try to probe deeper, but they cannot sidestep trained physicians and academics whose depth of knowledge and familiarity with the issues easily circumvent and obviate any inquiry that might undermine their theory or proposal. I have never seen a medical "expert" exposed, thwarted or seriously undermined by a question from the journalistic audience. I am reminded strongly of press conference at Columbia Presbyterian last month (covered in CodeBlueBlog) where the physicians told the audience that he was undergoing a "routine procedure for a rare complication" when actually he was undergoing a complex operation for a common complication. The statement went unchallenged (and no thanks to all of the mean-spirited bloggists who did not read my pieces on the Clinton case and proceeded to use my analysis of that case to label me as a gadfly, and much worse).

End of Part One.

Part Two will discuss the bone scan, the defense of my observation, Terri's two CT scans done after initial admission to the hospital; and, my $100,000 challenge.

Your explanation of the bone scan, CT scan and other evidence is strikingly logical and makes sense where most other explanations have been ridiculous.

The Same attorney who defended the med mal case, fighting in that case against Michael... ALSO worked FOR MICHAEL in another case at the time! Playing both sides, never presenting the most important defense to the case, ... I can't explain it!

I have no idea what really happened in this case, that explains it.

These are details that had to really be dug up to find, but are quite significant:

Many have looked at the bone scan and wondered why that never came up, why it never was used in any legal setting, well, I cannot explain it, but the players in the case, just by being who they were, may explain it!

Roland Lamb was the attorney defending the doctors against Michael Schiavo's medical malpractice lawsuit. Not only did Roland Lamb never use the bone scan in the original medical malpractice case, but he is reported to have never even bothered to get the records from Mediplex, the medical center where Terri was taken after her injuries in 1990!

That the bone scan from 1991 was never used in the medical malpractice case amazes me. How that could be is hard to imagine. If YOU were defending against a medical malpractice lawsuit, up against losing over a million dollars, wouldn't you use whatever you could? To show doubt for the plaintiff (Michael Schiavo)'s allegation that Terri's collapse was "caused" by a "bulemia-related" potassium imbalance that was undiagnosed by the doctor. Wouldn't you request all medical records and get every bit of information from the medical records available, searching for anything that might save your client over a million dollars?

And again, who was the attorney DEFENDING against Michael's case? Roland Lamb. Who were the attorneys on Michael's side suing to get benefits for Terri (or Michael)? Michael Schiavo hired Daniel Grieco to sue the doctor (and the medical malpractice liability insurance company) for damages. Daniel Grieco later referred the case to attorney Glenn Woodworth.

The same ROLAND LAMB who defended the medical malpractice liability case against Michael also REPRESENTED MICHAEL in a little known disability suit Michael put forward to get some long-term disability benefits from Prudential Insurance!

Daniel Grieco, or Glenn Woodworth, attorneys for Michael in the medical malpractice liability case, would have had no reason to use the bone scan information. But the defense attorney, Roland Lamb, had EVERY reason to get all medical records and EVERY reason to use the bone scan at that time. How is it possible that an accomplished attorney would not use this bone scan information when it was the perfect defense for the never-proved "bulemia" theory. And that bulemia/eating disorder theory of the case was argued even while which everyone, including Michael, under close examination under oath, admitted they never saw evidence or signs of an eating disorder or effects of an eating disorder.

The doctor who commented upon the bone scan, a Dr. Carnahan, medical director at Mediplex in Bradenton, Manatee County, Florida mysteriously "wrote off" the bone scan and attributed the results to "heterotopic ossification" which can commonly happen in patients with spinal cord injuries or brain injuries. But usually not so quickly! And, Terri had a compression fracture in her lumbar spine and an injury to the middle of her femur, which cannot be explained away so easily, are extremely unlikely to have been caused by "heterotopic ossification," and cannot be explained away by attributing them to vigorous "therapy." Did the doctor, Carnahan, just "miss it?"

Why would then attorney Roland Lamb never use the bone scan, never request the medical records, never provide the obvious defense to the never proved claim about a supposedly undiagnosed "bulemia." Can anyone explain that? I cannot for the life of me explain it, except if one did not really want to win the case from the start! I cannot say that that happened. But that is the ONLY explanation I can think of for an attorney not getting the complete medical records that apply to the very medical malpractice liability case!

And just another kink to the story that many do not know:

With all the incredible conflicts of interest in this case, sometimes the little details slip by. So here you go, make of it whatever you may:

You already know that one of Judge Greer's co-judges, John Lenderman has a sister Martha Lenderman who is on the board of directors of the hospice that participated in imprisoning & killing Terri. This Judge John Lenderman is a circuit judge in the Sixth Judicial Circuit.

But DID YOU KNOW ... that Judge John Lenderman, before he was a judge, worked as an attorney and among his clients was Prudential Insurance. John Lenderman, then attorney, represented the insurance company sued by Michael Schiavo (with attorney Roland Lamb representing MICHAEL!) in a little-known long term disability case, where Michael had sued to get long term disability coverage for Terri! Lenderman and Prudential settled giving Terri some disability coverage at the time. The circle of connections in this case is absolutely mind-boggling! Just another piece of the web that connects the players in this case, and the people around the players. ... something to think about.....

So Roland Lamb defended against Michael's medical malpractice liability lawsuit, but worked FOR Michael in the little-known long-term disability case! Does that smell right to you?

If you're confused, join the club, because I am too.

Nothing makes sense, and it doesn't make sense even from as far back as the original medical malpractice liability case, and what happened then affected everything that happened to Terri, through the courts thereafter! - Ron P

I have tracked down the reasons for judgment of the first time that Judge Greer authorized the withdrawal of "artificial life support" (not food and sustenence that was an add on). Reading the judgment is like watching an undertaker's assistant hammer nails into a coffin. Slowly, carefully, meticulously, legal sounding but scoffing at every legal principle, statute, case law and rule of evidence. I can just see Mary Schindler sitting there hearing the nails go in her daughters coffin, tap, tap, tap.

From the way things are going we have a lot more to worry about people offing us before our time, than keeping us hanging around in a comatose state. Can you say harvesting organs for transplants boys and girls. Can you say running out of money for medicare. Can you say a quickly aging population.

Your living will had better say that you want to be kept alive if your head is cut off if you want anyone to take your life sustaining wishes seriously.

Could the lawyers for the doctor have access to Terri's medical records from after her collapse without Michael's approval?

From everything I've been able to find, nobody other than Michael ever knew of that bone scan's existence until at least 2002, and I can't find any record of it until 2003. I know that Michael had been able to seal Terri's medical records early in the process. If that was the case, how would the doctors have been able to use them (or at least records from any care but what they had given Terri before her collapse) to defend themselves?

I really wish I could find the rest of the transcripts and relevant documents from the malpractice trial.

Angela, you made a good point there. According to the information that I have seen, Michael had the medical records sealed. That meant the doctors lawyers could not get access to those hospital records. The family's lawyer had to fight to get access to the records, because he would not release those records to them.

The fact that there has been so much subterfuge relating to Michael Schiavo is very disturbing.

Greetings, CBB, as you've been abbreviated. I really appreciate your blog, which I got linked to during the starvation of Terri Schiavo. I worked as an RN for ten years, and I have often been appalled, myself, at the MSM coverage the medical profession. One time, "scientific," studies, which are hailed as the end-all on a subject, and trumpeted throughout the media as if they are gospel truth, with, as you say, "no questions asked."
I share your desire to keep KILLING, whatever the motivation, out of the practice of medicine. Keep up your great work. I'll keep coming back, and I look forward to seeing the rest of "part II!"

I just had another look at the link provided to Abstract Appeal. Within the first few paragraphs I found there Greer made his findings that are based upon errors of fact. There are three errors that I noted (I did not write down all of the other errors in his findings):

1. the evidence regarding who rang 911. He has written into his judgement that it was Michael who called 911 but that is not accurate. It was Mr. Schindler snr who called 911 and then told Bobby to go to the apartment.

2. it is written into this document that Terri was in a comatose condition and that she had not recovered from that condition. This is a finding that is based upon an error of fact. The neurologist who examined Terri when she went to Bayfront (is that the correct name of the facility?) wrote into her notes that "The patient is awake" and that the pupils are equal and reactive. There is a total disregard for all medical evidence that pointed to the fact that Terri was responding to her environment. Greer's casual dismissal of this evidence is appalling. This is why Whittemore was wrong in not granting the de novo review as requested.

3. The third serious error concerns the cause of the fallout between the Schindlers and the rat fink. In the judgement Greer has written that the argument concerned the Schindlers wanting a share of the compensation given to Michael Schiavo for loss of consortium. This is not correct. At the very least he should have accepted into evidence the letter written by the Schindlers to Michael Schiavo requesting that guardianship be handed over to them. This letter outlined their concerns that he was not allowing Terri to have any further rehabilitation therapy.

There is also the error concerning when Karen Ann Quinlan died. Considering that Greer was the one who made the error, it was bad form when he refused to reconsider that alleged witness testimony when he was the one who made the error in the first place. He threw out the credible evidence in favour of the evidence that did lack credibility.

At the same time, it should be noted that the person who had the most difficulty getting facts straight is Michael Schiavo. I will be dealing with that on my own blog.

Maggie4life, I thought Mr. Schindler testified that Michael called Schindler first, who then told him to hang up and dial 9-1-1. Michael did so, and Schindler called Bobby.

Michael's story, of course, is different--every time he tells it in the trial testimony it varies.

I also noticed that Greer took Michael's version of the "fall-out" story as fact and disregarded the Schindlers' version.

I also found it interesting (and a bit disturbing) that Greer "weighted" the testimony of Terri's wishes based on only two elements: the credibility of the witness, and whether Terri was allegedly making comments about someone else's situation or about what she would want in such a situation herself.

The element he left out, and which seems to be to be obviously and deeply important, is the element of how similar each of those situations was to Terri's own. The situations in which she reportedly said she "wouldn't want to live like that" were situations in which terminally ill people essentially only had their pain increased and their life slightly prolonged by the procedures. But the Karen Ann Quinland situation, in which Terri was said to be adamant that it was wrong to remove the tubes, was almost DIRECTLY PARALLEL to Terri's own situation. In my opinion that fact alone should have given it greater weight in Judge Greer's consideration.

Angela, you are correct about that, Mr. Schindler and Bobby's testimonies do corroborate that Mr. Schindler called Bobby. You will also find that in the 2003 Larry King interview that Michael admits to shaking Terri as she was laying on the floor.

Since I am not a medical person, but have some experience with trauma (including falling out of a lift and hurting myself, I am wondering if this shaking had anything to do with her condition. My understanding is that if a person has a spinal cord injury that person should not be moved unless there are appropriate precautions. I am leaning towards the idea that this "shaking" might have caused further injury to Terri on the morning she collapsed.

Now to add to the confusion, I have just been visiting the Empire Journal and discovered that the lawyer who ran with the malpractice trial is making some very untrue statements about the collapse. Apparently he was caught stating that Michael and Terri had a large meal, and that Terri had gone to the bathroom to throw up and that is when she collapsed. He also stated that she had a heart attack. As we are now aware the discharge records from the hospital state that she did not have a heart attack.

The article supplied above satisfies some of the questions that I have been asking about the combination of the low potassium level and the high blood glucose level. That combination is also seen in people who have been asphyxiated by a variety of means, including strangulation.

I have seen at least three experts in their field state that they believed that Terri's injury seemed to be consistent with strangulation. If you ever get something stuck in your throat and start choking, you can get some idea of what might have happened at the time of the collapse.

The police report, which is not in fact the original also contains one very strange line where the police officer recorded that Michael said that he can think of no reason why Terri would have attempted suicide. This is suggestive of evidence that something was clearly wrong, and then the evidence was removed, and the investigation was stymied. Makes me want to know why the investigation never went ahead, even at that early stage.

The other question is, if Michael picked Terri up, shook her, held her in his arms, tried to revive her as he claims, then why do both Bobby and the police report state that she was lying on her face when they arrived and that Michael was doing nothing? Why would he say that he turned her over, shook her, etc. if he didn't--and if he did, why would he then lay her down on her face and walk away leaing her like that?

exactly. But is that really the order? We only have Michael's word that he heard a fall. If you look at what he said he also testified that he was getting out of bed for some reason when he heard Terri fall. Right? I will reserve judgement on that one.

What if he is telling the truth, that he did shake Terri, but before she fell onto the floor in the first place.

He also said in testimony that she was making a gurgling sound. That means she was very likely chocking when making this "gurgling" sound. So why, if he did not have a hand in her collapse did he not perform CPR?

Keep the questions flowing because we seem to be going in the same direction here.

ddb, extraneal is a solution used in peritoneal dialysis. I know a bit about it because there's a hereditary kidney disease in my family and my mother was on peritoneal dialysis and occasional hemodialysis for several years until she was finally able to get a transplant.

The way it works is that you pump it through a tube into the area between your stomach and your skin, and it uses the peritoneal membrane lining your stomach area (which is a semipermeable membrane, meaning it allows some molecules and not others to go through) and the process of osmosis to draw elements and toxins out of your blood and into the fluid, because the concentration of various elements (primarily dextrose) in the dialysis solution is significantly higher than the concentration in the person's body. This process takes several hours, and what happens is that the person walks around with the solution inside them most of the time, and exchanges it for fresh solution a couple of times a day.

I have no idea what it would do if injected, but I don't think that just because extraneous doesn't contain potassium it would cause the person to have low potassium in test results. Also, it's prescription-only and very hard to get hold of if you're not a kidney patient--and remember that Michael was not working in the medical field at the time of Terri's collapse. And you also have the problem of how he would manage to inject her with it and then not have a syringe or a dialysis bag lying around to be noticed, not to mention that it would be difficult to hold her down with one hand while injecting something into it with the other. Not to mention that a bag of dialysis solution is quite a large quantity (I'm thinking about a liter) of fluid, and only a few ccs would fit into a syringe anyway, and I would not guess it would be a fast-acting or effecient way to kill someone at all.

It is interesting to note, though, that kidney patients are advised to refrain from particular foods including dairy products or colas because of their high potassium and phospohorous content respectively (two minerals which people with kidney problems have a hard time metabolizing). Since dairy products and meats are high in potassium and colas are high in phosphates, it might cause an interesting problem if she was not eating dairy products or much meat and drinking lots of cola and tea.

"Excessive amounts of the herb licorice (not licorice candy) and caffeine-containing herbs (such as cola nut, guarana, and possible green and black tea) can lead to loss of potassium."

So I can see why one valid theory is that her diet could case low potassium.

However, as I mentioned in my post under the 100,000 challenge thread, just because there is one possible explanation for some or most of her test results doesn't mean there could not have also been other factors in her collapse, such as someone trying to tease or scare her by holding a hand over her mouth and nose and then shaking her up when she passed out.

It is certainly possible that the potassium imbalance could have been at least partially caused by her diet, but was not the only or complete cause of her collapse and injuries. If doctors or police stop investigating when a theory that could explain part or most of the situation arises, they could very likely be missing something very important that was present concurrently with the other elements.

I guess in my mind I'm trying to think of a scenerio
that would have caused increased blood sugar and low potassium.

He really seemed to be up on the "low potassium" thing.
And if she was on a diet it seems like her sugar wouldn't have been elevated - at least not from a normal source (like cokes). Perhaps like you say from a particular food that would do it.

The part about the EXTRANEAL caught my eye because it would give a false reading of low potassium unless specific testing equipment was used, but I did think it had to be put in the abdomen for dialysis. yep, thanks. Interesting that you have experience with it.

It does make one wonder, which came first the chicken or the egg - did Michael Schiavo always have an interest in medicine or did he get the interest later?

Wouldn't her teeth and throat tissues have shown evidence if she was bulemic (throwing up) on exam in the hospital?
If they were looking for bulemia to supposedly go with "low potassium" her teeth should have shown some evidence. Even in the hospice, her teeth would still have shown evidence of an "eating disorder."

I wonder if hospices require blood work and physical exams on a routine basis? I thought they did - you have to be re-certified "terminal" to stay after 6 months I have been told by our cancer doctors here. So what was her blood work showing I wonder.

She had the stiff neck (and body I think it said)
She had elevated white count.
She had cardiac arrest.

I have wondered this about Terri as I remembered Paula Bailey from my home town who came down with an extreme case of meningitis.

Well, wouldn't you know, this morning I woke up to find Paula has been killed in a terrible car wreck (after all the other she has been through!)

Anyway, here is the newspaper article from this morning.
Look at some of the things that happened to her through her illness.

grrrr let me vent here too - It should be ILLEGAL for these idiots who answer the phones in doctor's offices to advise people ANYTHING! A doctor should only have a practice the size of what he can PERSONALLY answer the patients' calls and questions - not the 19 yo teen they have hired to answer the danged phones! ...ok, now I will go on.

Without therapy Paula would have been basically the "vegetable" Terri had been labeled.

I happened to have been working the night Paula was brought into our hospital. I typed her admit note and then later heard the CODE BLUE ...and ended up typing that note also. It was a disaster.

The article does not list all that was done for her as she rehabilitated. She was taken to Gainesville, FL for a cochlear implant to help with some hearing. And much much more.

Well, here is the article from the paper this morning. What do you think? Any chance Terri could have had undiagnosed and untreated meningitis?

+++++++++++++++++

Posted on Sun, Apr. 10, 2005

Bailey dies from car-wreck injuries

By James L. Rosica

DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

Paula Bailey, the Tallahassee woman who became deaf and blind after an attack of meningitis six years ago, died Saturday night from injuries sustained in a car wreck a week ago.

Her husband, Doug, and their 10-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, were at her side when she died at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, said Bailey's pastor, the Rev. Brant Copeland of First Presbyterian Church.

"Paula showed remarkable courage and innovation in dealing with her disabilities," Copeland said. "She made a wonderful, full life."

The Baileys were on their way to the Springtime Tallahassee parade so she could march with a group of blind people. Their car was broadsided at Thomasville and Armistead roads when another driver ran a red light, according to a Tallahassee police report.

Bailey, 50, sustained brain trauma; Doug Bailey's shoulder bone was broken, and their daughter was not hurt. The driver of the other car was given a traffic citation but will not face criminal charges, TPD Sgt. Dave Folsom said.

Steve Sandler, a friend who became her personal assistant, worked with her four days a week for the last five years, he said, helping her regain mobility.

Her blindness and deafness had not been her only challenges - she badly burned herself about three years ago after spilling boiling water, Sandler said.

"But she bounced back from that, too," he said. "So many people would tell her she was an inspiration to them. She said she was tired of being an inspiration, but I said, 'Too bad, you are.'"

In the last year, Bailey also had gotten back her old personality, Sandler said.

"Her sense of humor returned," she said. "She spent more time thinking of other people ... baking for people. She spent more time doing nice things for other people than anybody I've ever known."

Jeanine Kane, Bailey's Braille teacher, had been working with her since Bailey lost her sight.

"She was a testament to the fact that a person can live fully with disabilities," Kane said. "She would misplace things and be able to laugh about it, and about other challenges she faced."

On Jan. 31, 1999, Bailey - then a media consultant and graphics editor - caught what she thought was flu, suffering a fever, headache and earache. She called her doctor's office and an employee there told her to stay home and follow up the next day.

But what she had was meningitis, an inflammation of the membrane covering the brain,
causing her to slip into a coma that night, lasting nearly a month. While comatose, she also suffered strokes and cardiac arrest. On regaining consciousness, she could not hear or see.

Bailey later sued her physician; the case settled out of court in 2002, records show.

A memorial service for Bailey will be held Saturday at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church downtown.

Start at the beginning. Click on this address for the document which the Pinsella Police Department reconstructed from the original police incident report.

Note that this document should have been ruled inadmissible. The police should produced the original microfilm - if it was clear enough for them to read it it would have been clear enough for the judge to read it. This breaches the "best evidence" rule and leaves room for the police to do a little retroactive reconstruction to cover their asses.

Nevertheless it raises a lot of interesting questions such as why the paramedics found Terri face down.

My observations as I scanned that TRUMPED UP AND SANITIZED report. ('scuse me, that report just had such an aroma to it!)

1. Why was this report REDONE Oct 22, 2003? Who requested that it be redone?

2. As they said,the form had changed but I don't understand the age things on there re: 40, and 26, and 27 wn neither Terri or Michael appeared to have DOB that would have made them in their 40s.

3. Why was HOMICIDE answering the call?

4. Why in this REDO report was note made of the status of TOWER ("...then probationary officer Tower.")...in other words this is not a verbatim report. Somebody has taken liberties - and this is one of them.

5. Who re-wrote this report....the writer refers to "myself"...is the writer the initials?

6. Is SunCoast who took her to the hospital, the same "firefighter/paramedic" who "the writer" supposedly got this information from? How many paramedics were there? Was the fire department there also? What were the names?

7. Why did the paramedic call for police assistance...I know on down in the report the excuse was "because of age and the situation seemed UNUSUAL". [please please please translate what UNUSUAL means here!] No blood. Nothing amiss. No signs of trauma. SO...what was UNUSUAL?

?what was her BP at the apartment?
?what was her temperature?
?her BS was elevated - to what at the scene? That would be the first thing checked with somebody out cold like that - ?are they having a low blood sugar.

8. Who put her in the ambulace? Was it the firefighter/paramedic who the writer interviewed? Was the fire dept there? Was the ambulance and the fire dept? How many people ended up being there? It must have been a crowd!

9. PRESCRIPTIONS IN THE KITCHEN! This is interesting. The report says "many prescriptions in kitchen but only 2 belonged to Terri".
.......what was Terri taking?
.......who was taking the other RXs?
.......if they were MS's, what were they? Why was he on "several medications"? Were the RX bottles taken to the ER?

10. MS states to writer "Terri has allergies"...."but she knows what not to ingest".......OK, I GIVE UP, WHAT WERE THE ALLERGIES???????????

11. The author of this stupid idiotic report uses the term "female problems". ?Who uses that term? A medical personnel would not have said that to an officer! And if it wasn't said by the medical personnel, where did this "author" come up with that term? Was that "created" by the "creator" of this fantasy piece to embellish the now existing report? Sure would like to see that original "degenerated" report. My bet there is no mention of "female problems" in that first report.

12. Why did Terri degenerate to needing a respirator in the ER...?was it to protect her airway? Was she so sedated she couldn't breathe? It said the CAT scan showed "no midline shift" etc. Yet she was out cold. What would cause someone to be
.....out cold
.....no drugs on board
.....basic blood work showed only 2 small abnormalities
.....no trauma
.....no cardiac enzyme abnormalities
Did they do a blood gas? Surely they did before the ventilator. What was it?

13. I really like this one!........"No trauma to head or face"........!yet according to MS's testimony the THUD woke him up. Well, that sports fan is a loud noise. To me that would have to be a person not gently sliding down to the floor in unconsciousness, that is total and complete BOOM, falling. ?and yet no trauma. Interesting. No bump to the head. No bruise anywhere. No blood on the bathroom cabinet from hitting a corner. No sign of her hitting anything? No vomit on the floor.
.....did she lose bowel or bladder control there on the floor? (seizure?)
.....did she lose bowel or bladder control on the way in the ambulance?
.....she must have been breathing in the ambulance. I don't read they were bagging her.

The mention of the times is what generated this post here, sorry. I got side-tracked on the other crap in this report.
This SANITIZED report prepared 13 years after the fact is so useless.

I was once attacked and nearly killed.
The police took my statement.
By law they were to have had me read and sign it for correctness.......which they never did.
When I read what was in the newspaper.....an account created by the reporters from this same statement...WHICH I NEVER GOT TO SEE.....the time of the attack was totally WRONG in the newspaper.......AND.....as I found out later......it was wrong also on the statement, as were about 20 other things incorrect in my so-called statement.

The point I'm getting at is at best a deposition or statement is so sloppily written from start to finish in most police departments, I wonder how courts can ever use them as evidence.

The best hope of getting anywhere near the truth is getting to see the degenerated original of this report and trying to talk to the people who were really there....which I would bet the original has been burned up years ago. And the people have either died or not going to be cooperative.

Terri and MS lived in an apartment I noticed.
Wonder how big that complex was?
I would try to get a City Directory for 1990 and
try looking up who was neighbors from then and .....see if they would elaborate on that night. There must have been some kind of commotion if Homocide was there! and paramedics....and ?fire department?

That was a Sunday morning. People would be home.
But my bet is Terri and MS had a fight/left over from Saturday night......and something terrible went down.

But that's my best bet.

p.s. Sure would like to know what the word UNUSUAL meant in that report.

Is there any document that tells where
Terri and Micheal Schiavo were that Saturday
night, and if they were fighting? drinking? (report I read said Terri's alcohol was below 10/normal)

?did they go to a show
?did they go out to dinner
?any kind of testimony from others who
tell what kind of mood Terri was in that Saturday night
?did Terri talk to her parents that Saturday?
?was Michael working that Saturday night (he was in restaurant work then) What was his work schedule?

?how did she get all those broken bones I keep reading about

?what was her medical record in the hospitals in the area before that night?